SMART
ULDS
Tag, you’re IT
Felicity Stredder brings an update on the growing influence
of IT on the ULD, from some of the big names in boxes.
As the air cargo industry
wakes up to the
importance of the ULD
in meeting the ever-evolving
demands of the market, the
smart capabilities of the
container continue to develop,
bringing the business ever
closer to the unbroken cold
chain, the elimination of
costly ULD damage and to
keeping track of shipments
and all-important assets. With
the business case proven,
smart ULD deployment is
growing – so say the suppliers.
Unilode’s progress
ULD management company
Unilode Aviation Solutions
provides an update on progress
since securing first place in
IATA’s Air Cargo Innovation
Award in March, for its BLE
5.0 ULD tracking technology,
which is now on the cusp of
widespread deployment.
“The Board have agreed
funding for a fully digitalised
IoT fleet of ULDs; we
have formed a long-term
partnership with our software
provider Nexiot, to identify
use cases for the ULD data;
and we have started the rollout
of Bluetooth tags with
LATAM Airlines to fully equip
up to 4,000 containers,” relates
CEO Benoît Dumont. Unilode
has also tagged containers for
AirBridgeCargo Airlines and
Hawaiian Airlines, is soon to
start tagging Scandinavian
Airlines’ fleet and is finalising
a trial with Air Canada Cargo.
A separate trial with Cathay
Pacific, meanwhile, will see
250 readers rolled out by
the summer, and a further
2,500 deployed in the next
two years. On June 6, at the
Air Cargo Europe event, the
company announced the
roll-out of the world’s first
digitised main deck containers
with partner ABC Airlines: fireresistant
containers equipped
with a Transmitting Portable
Electronic Device based on
Unilode’s award-winning BLE
5.0 technology. The first half
of the new container fleet will
be delivered by the end of
June 2019, with the remainder
to follow in September.
Market differentiator
As the smart ULD increasingly
becomes a standard offering,
Dumont explains how Unilode
intends to differentiate.
“Ultimately every new unit in
the Unilode fleet will be BLEenabled
from production,” he
says. “At some point you’ve
got to make a bold statement.
This is the evolution of the
smart ULD: in the future,
every asset provider will use
IoT. So, to serve our customers
better, we believe we have to
differentiate. We’re going to be
the first fully digitalised smart
ULD provider.”
46 June 2019 www.airlogisticsinternational.com
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